not even Loria. All
had stood listening, breathless; and Virginia had known that, behind the
door of his locked cabin, Maxime Dalahaide must hear every clear-cadenced
word of fine, Parisian French.

Loria had stood listening with the rest, a sneer on his lips, though his
eyes burned with a deep fire. If he had taken a step, hands would have
been thrust out to stop him. But he did not move except, in the midst of
Liane Devereux's story, to play nervously with an old-fashioned ring of
twisted, jewel-headed serpents on the third finger of his left hand.

Suddenly, as the woman finished, he raised the hand to his lips and
seemed to bite the finger with the ring. Then he dropped his hand and
looked at his accomplice with a strained smile. But the smile froze; the
lips quivered into a slight grimace. His eyes, glittering with agony,
turned to Virginia.

"I loved you," he said, and fell forward on his face.

"He has taken poison!" exclaimed Chandler, the United States Consul. "It
must have been in that queer ring."

He and Roger Broom and George Trent and the German doctor pressed round
the prostrate figure, but the woman who had denounced him was before them
all. With a cry she rushed to the fallen man, and, flinging herself down,
caught up the hand with the ring. They saw what she meant to do, and
would have snatched her away, but already her lips had touched the spot
where his had been, and found the same death.

* * * * *

The whole situation was changed by the unexpected developments on board
the _Bella Cuba_. Dr. Sauber had relinquished, indeed, almost forgotten,
the clever plan by which the yacht was to be detained. The French Consul,
Loria's host, was hurriedly brought on board, to be dumbfounded by a
recital of what had happened. With Loria dead, and guilty, the fugitive
concealed on the _Bella Cuba_ innocent, De Letz's personal motive for
detaining the prisoner disappeared. His chivalry was fired by Virginia's
beauty and the brave part she had played. In the end, instead of making
difficulties for the party, he consented to take charge of his friend's
body and that of Liane Devereux, which latter duty was his by right, as
consul to the country from which she came. The dead man and dead woman
would be carried ashore in the boat which had brought the four men out
to the yacht; and De Letz would, acting on the statement of those who had
heard the confession, make such representation